Kaliningrad Might Be the Next Flashpoint in Russia-Ukraine War, but Why Is It a Part of Russia?

How did the German city of Königsberg become Kaliningrad?

As we get close to four months since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the theater of war could move to the Baltic region. The Russian city of Kaliningrad is the latest flashpoint in Russia-Lithuania relations. Kaliningrad is located between Poland and Lithuania and is an exclave of Russia. The two EU nations have taken a strong stand against the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Lithuania was the first country to eliminate its reliance on Russian fossil fuels. The Baltic country has now gone a step further, rattling the Kremlin’s cage by blocking the rail transit of certain goods from mainland Russia to Kaliningrad.

Russia claims the action is illegal and threatens Lithuania with terrible repercussions. Russian-Ukrainian hostilities might soon spill over to Kaliningrad, and the conflict could then spread to the Baltic States.

Putin has openly admitted that he wants to expand his power after comparing himself to Tsar Peter the Great. Now, he just needs an excuse to invade the Baltic states.

But why is Kaliningrad, which was known as Königsberg until 1946, a part of Russia? Kaliningrad is not reachable by land from Russia without going through Lithuania or Poland.

So, how did the region become home to a million Russians? To find out the answer, we have to revisit the era of the Crusades.

The Northern Crusades and the birth of a city

What comes to mind when you hear the word “Crusade”?

The most common image is of galloping knights riding to the Holy Land to take Jerusalem from the Muslims. “Crusades” is a broad term that refers to several religious wars that happened in both the Middle East and Europe.

A hundred years after the Christians first took over Jerusalem, Pope Celestine III called for a crusade to subjugate the pagan kingdoms of Northern Europe and convert them to Christianity.

One such region which came under the spotlight was the kingdom of the Sambians. The Sambians were a pagan people from the Baltics known as the Old Prussians.

The Christian kingdom of Masovia in Poland asked the newly formed order of Germanic Christian Knights, known as the Teutonic Order, to defend its borders against the Old Prussians.

The Teutonic knights attacked the Sambians at their stronghold of Twangste and destroyed the city. After their victory, the knights rebuilt Twangste and christened it Königsberg in honor of the Bohemian King Ottokar II. Thus, the city of Königsberg was born, a name it would retain till 1946.

People from Germany, Poland, and Lithuania moved to the area, and by the 15th century, the Old Prussian culture was slowly dying out.

Königsberg became an important center of German culture, and for the next 500 years, the German identity was the most prominent.

In 1454, Königsberg was a fiefdom in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, though it remained in the control of the Teutonic Knights. Fast forward to 1525, Königsberg was named the capital of the newly formed Duchy of Prussia, a puppet state of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Duchy of Prussia embraced the Protestant Reformation. Albert, the Grandmaster of the Teutonic Order, became Albert, Duke of Prussia.

In 1618, the Duchy of Prussia seceded from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Duchy of Prussia and the Germanic State of Brandenburg merged to form the kingdom of Brandenburg-Prussia, which would later be known as the Kingdom of Prussia. This unification is important because it set the stage for Prussia’s rise and the role it played in the birth of Germany as a nation-state.

In 1701, in Königsberg, King Fredrick I was crowned the first king of Prussia. Prussia later joined the North German confederation. The city was an important cultural and political center for the German people. Immanuel Kant, the philosopher, was born in Königsberg. By the nineteenth century, the city had reached the same level of importance as Berlin for the Germans.

So how did it end up in Russian hands?

The World Wars and Soviet occupation of Königsberg

Following World War I, the Allies forced Germany to relinquish substantial territory to nations such as France, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. Konigsberg survived the breakup of Germany. The city became part of the state of East Prussia in the Weimar Republic and remained in German hands. According to the Treaty of Versailles, Germany had to transfer a part of East Prussia to Lithuania.

After Adolf Hitler came to power, Germany took back the lost parts of East Prussia. But everything changed during the Second World War.

The allies attacked the city from both the land and the air. The British bombed Königsberg several times. After the Soviet Spring Offensive of 1945, the city fell into the hands of the USSR.

During the Potsdam conference in 1945, the Western Allied Powers agreed to give the Königsberg to the Soviets. The Soviet Union partitioned East Prussia into three parts. The northern part went to Lithuania, the southern part to Poland, and the area around Konigsberg, which was in the middle, was to be a part of Russia.

Access to the Baltic Sea was one of the reasons why Russia was interested in Königsberg. A warm-water port was required by the Soviet navy.

On July 4, 1946, the USSR renamed Königsberg Kaliningrad. The Soviets carried out ethnic cleansing of the German inhabitants in the area between 1946 and 1949. There were large-scale deportations of Germans and resettlement of Russians from the mainland. Stalin didn’t want to risk an uprising by the Germans.

The city’s official language was changed from German to Russian.

Why wasn’t Kaliningrad given to Lithuania?

Well, to put it simply, Stalin didn’t trust Lithuanians with a strategic area, even though Lithuania was a part of the USSR. After Stalin died, Khrushchev offered Kaliningrad to Lithuania, but the Lithuanian government didn’t want it because the city was mostly Russian. This was a big missed opportunity, which Lithuania might be regretting today.

Kaliningrad became the headquarters of the Soviet Baltic fleet. Since it was a strategic city, it was closed to foreigners during the Cold War.

The world had soon forgotten a once-thriving European cultural center. But things changed with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the German reunification.

A missed opportunity

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in Dec 1991, the status of Kaliningrad could have changed. However, Lithuania didn’t want the city for the same reasons as before. They felt too many Russians in their territory would create problems.

Was Lithuania short-sighted? As they say, hindsight is 20/20, but back then, it made sense not to rule a Russian majority territory.

Why didn’t Germany ask for Kaliningrad?

From a historical point of view, it would make sense. Germany reunified a year before the Soviet Union’s demise. The process of German reunification was not without controversy. Britain and France were alarmed, but because Germany had the support of the United States, the two Western European nations could not interfere.

Helmut Kohl, the chancellor of Germany, thought taking back Kaliningrad and turning it into Königsberg would put all of Europe on high alert since that’s how Hitler got started. Kohl’s priority was reunification, not reclaiming former German lands. Besides, Germany, like Lithuania, did not want a Russian-dominated zone on its soil.

The Russian Federation was to inherit the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic’s territory, which meant that Kaliningrad would remain in Russian hands.

Since Poland and Lithuania joined the EU and NATO in 2004, tensions over Kaliningrad remained high. Russians have to pass through NATO territory to reach the Baltic port city. NATO also has to tread carefully since any violation could cause a full-blown conflict with Russia.

The current list of sanctions includes coal, metals, materials for construction, and advanced technology. Lithuania claims it is following the sanctions list, and hence cannot let the Russian goods pass through its territory.

Russia views the blockade by Lithuania as a violation of international treaties. Any Russian attack on a NATO member would lead to a reaction from all members of the alliance, including the US, a situation that might get nasty.

Could the present-day tensions be prevented had Germany or Lithuania taken over Kaliningrad? Probably. But the world in the early 90s was different.

Hopefully, there won’t be a Russian invasion of Lithuania and a full-scale World War.

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